Colorin' the Devil

Last night, while on one of my late night drawing sessions, I drew this really funny picture of a devil. I thought it was good enough to color, so I opened it up in Photoshop. But before I started coloring it, I thought it would be cool to record the whole thing with SnagIt!.

This was sped up to triple speed, so coloring it took about 10-12 minutes of my time. I made this using Windows Movie Maker (God I hate that program), but hopefully by next week all my future movies will be made up nice in iMovie or one of the MacBook's decent movie editing programs. Here's hoping, & enjoy the video!:

The final image:

Bold in Bronze?

Years ago, after Frank Thomas passed away, I came up with an interesting yet crazy thought of how to commemorate the legacy of each of the Nine Old Men: by erecting statues of them. I thought it would be really nice if 9 statues were grouped together in a large open courtyard where people can come & see them. Or they could each be spread out around one of the theme parks or around the Walt Disney Studios Lot, so people would have to go & find each of them individually.

One idea was to have each animator standing with one or two of the characters they brought to life beside them (ex: Eric Larson holding Figaro, John Lounsbery with Ben Ali Gator, Ward Kimball with Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder, etc.). There would be small, weatherproof TV screens around them showcasing some of the scenes they animated. Below the statues, there would be little plaques with their names & a quote of theirs.

Here's an example of a variation of one of the sculpture concepts, this one commemorating Ollie. Pardon the sloppiness, I drew/colored it very quickly.

Like the New Banner?

Well... I became inpatient... so I decided to put the new banner up a few days early. Whattaya' think?

I roughly sketched about 15-20 different thumbnail designs for the new banner until I finally came up with a layout I liked. Some other concepts were the three guys raking/jumping into piles of leaves, walking through the woods & harvesting. I briefly considered doing holiday-themed banners for Halloween (pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, etc.) or Thanksgiving (turkey dinner, football, etc.), but I decided against those ideas believing I should focus more on fall itself & not the holidays. One idea that I liked a lot was one of Cannibal Chicken catching leaves with his tongue as if they were winter snowflakes, but I scrapped that at the last minute 'cause I couldn't plan it out right on paper.

I finally came up with a concept I liked: pumpkin picking. I then drew a larger rough draft to plan out the composition & poses in the scene. The only difference in the original draft & the final draft up top is that Steve-O was originally the scarecrow instead of Cannibal Chicken, but once I thought of adding the crows at the last minute, I knew Cannibal Chicken would fit better with them. I also added the fence, barn & tied bundles of stalk later on.

Then I began to draw the final draft. The actual drawing is about 10.5" wide & 4.5" high. I first drew it extremely rough in blue pencil to lay out the characters & objects in the scene , then went over it once more in green to pinpoint & clean up the lines. Then I began to ink the drawing:

Here's what it looked like about halfway through the inking process. Notice the light green & blue lines underneath before I erased them later on:

Once the inking was done, I erased all the green & blue pencil lines & shaded the drawing in black Ebony pencil. I like to do that because it gives the drawing a nice sketchy texture underneath the color, almost like an old book illustration:

Then comes the fun part: the color. Surprisingly, it ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would be. The only difficulty I had was coloring the pumpkin patch & the corn & bundles on the left. It ended up consisting of about 15 layers, from the purple & cream sky on the bottom to the shadows on the top.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the way it came out. There aren't as many noticeable mistakes as the last banner & I think the poses & colors are a bit stronger & more defined here as well. It's definitely an improvement over my summer banner & I'm looking forward to it being the first thing I see when I check my blog for the next few months. I hope you think so to!

More to come soon!

Back Again...

Hiya folks! I just got back from West Palm Beach & although Ol' Tropical Storm Fay stuck around Florida for a while (& apparently still is), the weather was actually a lot sunnier than I expected. Lucky me!

Anyway, continuing where I left off, I'm now in the process of creating a new banner for the blog to commemorate the beginning of the fall season. Now I know most calenders say that Autumn doesn't technically start 'til late September, but I always felt that it started right when school did, so THERE! Take that, Gregorians!

At this point, I'm only up to the rough blue pencil stage of the process, but the inking should go by pretty quick too. The hardest part is the coloring! Sure, Photoshop makes coloring my sketches a cinch, but when you're partially colorblind (only alittle bit) & it takes you a few hours to color all the separate layers, it definitely requires plenty of patience. Boy, all those red, yellow, orange, brown & gold leaves are gonna be a LOAD of fun to color one by one... & I hope I can get that, along with all the other important crap, outta the way by this coming weekend. I'm movin' back to good ol' 318 at SVA this Saturday!

The temporary banner I have up now was cobbled together from a picture I made in response to some of my friends recent "alternate color scheme" pictures. Here's the original:

Oh, & if you miss the old summer banner, don't worry! Here it is!:

By the way, I have plenty of Florida drawings to post (which reminds me, I still haven't posted any of the camping drawings I did a few weeks ago!). Expect those within' the next few days!

& here's a reminder to everyone!... so far I've only gotten 2 great submissions to my companion blog, "DUCK!". The gallery must grow, people! If you want to submit your own ducky piece of original artwork, click on the "DUCK!" link on the right & read the rules. REMEMBER, WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

Goin' Out Again...

I'm goin' down to not-so-sunny Florida for the next few days to see the folks, so this blog won't be updated 'til I get back on Monday.

In the meantime, enjoy the temporary blog banner I quickly cobbled together & posted above. I'm working on a new banner for the Fall season, which I plan putting up on the first day of September. 'Til then, enjoy Steve-O & his 7 designer colors.

I bid you all 'Adieu'!

Throw Me a 'Bone'...

Before I started at SVA, the only cartoons I really ever saw were Disney's & some of the old cartoons that (used to) air on CN, & the only comics I ever really read were whatever was/is in Newday. Since then, so many different cartoons, films & comics have been introduced to me & have had a great effect on me & my work, along with the many teachers & fellow students I study with every day. While some of the comics I've discovered have been recommended to me by my friends & collegues, a select few have been floating around me forever & I haven't finally recognized them until just recently. One of them was Jeff Smith's Bone series.

For what seemed to be years, I've noticed this cute little white cartoon character popping up from time to time whereever I went. To me, he looked like a cross between Mickey Mouse & a Shmoo. He definitely caught my attention, but I never really had the urge to find out who or what this little guy was or what he was from.

A few weeks ago, my friend Mike Luckas, his girlfriend Sara & I took a day trip back to the city. At one point when we were around St. Marks, we stopped by the Forbidden Planet comic shop. As I browsed through all the different comic books, graphic models & such, I came across that little white guy again on the cover of a book.

Out of sheer curiosity, I bought the book & read it that night when I got back home.

From the very first page, I IMMEDIATELY got hooked on Bone! The characters, the artwork & especially the story pulled me into it & I wanted to find out what was next in store for these little guys. A few days ago, I drove to the nearest Barnes & Noble (about a 20 min. drive) & picked up books 2, 3 & 4, thinking that would last me a few days or so. WRONG! I went through those 3 books in a matter of a few hours. The next day, I drove all the way back to the store & bought the next 4 volumes, & I went through those 4 books that very day!

There's only one more book in the series (Book 9), but unfortunately the store didn't have #9 in stock. Now I'm patiently (yet eagerly) waiting to pick up the final book on Amazon. But sadly, I'll be away from Thursday 'til Monday of next week on a trip down to not-so-sunny Florida, so I'll have to hold out on my Bone fix for nearly a week! AAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHH!!!!

Still, what can I say about Bone that nobody else has said already?.... Nothing, that's what! I can only say it's such a great series & although I've only discovered it just recently, it's already has influenced me a great deal. Jeff Smith sits right up there with Charles Schulz & Walt Kelly, a truly talented artist indeed.

I now hear that there are plans for a Bone movie in the works. I really hope it's true to the books & Smith has heavy control over the whole thing. Personally, I believe the series would work best as a trilogy (3 books make up 1 film) & I REALLY hope it will be animated traditionally to fit with the style of Smith's drawings. Sure, it COULD be done in CGI or as a live-action/CGI film, but I don't think it would retain the look, feel & style of the books. Here's hoping!

Strangely enough, I noticed how the characters of Fone Bone, Phoney Bone & Smiley Bone are uncannily similar to my characters Randy, Steve-O & Cannibal Chicken. After read a few of the books, I felt like I have unknowingly 'plagarized' Jeff Smith's characters! I really gotta fine tune my character's personalities a bit! That alone inspired me to draw this fun little setup of Steve-O & Phoney Bone facing off. "Who will stand on top: Bird or Bone?"

Thanks for inspirin', Jeff Smith!

A Washboard Bubble Bath

I did this quick little drawing of Steve-O in an old washtub, then thought it was good enough to ink, scan & color. Click on the player below to hear the song he's whistlin' to, sung & played by one of my favorite bands!

Discover Firehouse Five Plus Two!